Thresholdless corner vortex solitons in fractal Sierpiński topological insulators
Abstract
Quantized vortices are ubiquitous in physics, spanning superconductivity, astrophysics, superfluid condensed matter systems, and nonlinear optics. Yet embedding vorticity into topologically protected nonlinear states has remained a major challenge, with all previously observed corner solitons in higher-order topological insulators (HOTIs) exhibiting only trivial phase distributions. Here, we report on the first realization of stable topological corner vortex solitons in a photonic fractal HOTI. Using an array of laser-written waveguides in the shape of Sierpiński gasket with a controllable distortion, we design linear topological vortex modes, from which nonlinear corner vortex solitons bifurcate. Moreover, we demonstrate that these solitons exhibit exceptional robustness across a broad power range and, unlike vortex solitons in topologically trivial lattices, form without a power threshold. Our results introduce the angular momentum degree of freedom into the physics of topological corner modes, opening prospects for topologically protected vortex-based photonics.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{zhang2026thresholdless,
title = {{Thresholdless corner vortex solitons in fractal Sierpiński topological insulators}},
author = {Yiqi Zhang and Alexander V. Kireev and Victor O. Kompanets and Sergey Y. Alyatkin and Nikita S. Kostyuchenko and Sergei A. Zhuravitskii and Nikolay N. Skryabin and Khalil Sabour and Alexander A. Kalinkin and Yongdong Li and Sergei P. Kulik and Pavlos G. Lagoudakis and Sergey V. Chekalin and Yaroslav V. Kartashov and Victor N. Zadkov},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.08344},
eprint = {2609.08344},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.08344},
note = {CC0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Thresholdless corner vortex solitons in fractal Sierpiński topological insulators
AU - Yiqi Zhang
AU - Alexander V. Kireev
AU - Victor O. Kompanets
AU - Sergey Y. Alyatkin
AU - Nikita S. Kostyuchenko
AU - Sergei A. Zhuravitskii
AU - Nikolay N. Skryabin
AU - Khalil Sabour
AU - Alexander A. Kalinkin
AU - Yongdong Li
AU - Sergei P. Kulik
AU - Pavlos G. Lagoudakis
AU - Sergey V. Chekalin
AU - Yaroslav V. Kartashov
AU - Victor N. Zadkov
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.08344
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.08344
AB - Quantized vortices are ubiquitous in physics, spanning superconductivity, astrophysics, superfluid condensed matter systems, and nonlinear optics. Yet embedding vorticity into topologically protected nonlinear states has remained a major challenge, with all previously observed corner solitons in higher-order topological insulators (HOTIs) exhibiting only trivial phase distributions. Here, we report on the first realization of stable topological corner vortex solitons in a photonic fractal HOTI. Using an array of laser-written waveguides in the shape of Sierpiński gasket with a controllable distortion, we design linear topological vortex modes, from which nonlinear corner vortex solitons bifurcate. Moreover, we demonstrate that these solitons exhibit exceptional robustness across a broad power range and, unlike vortex solitons in topologically trivial lattices, form without a power threshold. Our results introduce the angular momentum degree of freedom into the physics of topological corner modes, opening prospects for topologically protected vortex-based photonics.
ER -